Inky black waves lapped ominously over the rocky Georgian shoreline where a fair-haired young man and his two companions stood contemplating their voyeuristic expedition into the depths. Plunging wholeheartedly into the icy waters, the divers traced the rocky surface of the shore that soon dropped off into a steep misshapen wall full of dark crevices.

A black hole caught the eye of the lead diver who traversed closer, revealing a tunnel wide enough for the men to swim through easily… Curious, the divers continued along the dark, narrow passage that soon opened up into a blackened prehistoric chamber dripping with menacing stalactites.

But the horrific sight that frightened the divers out of their wits was the piles of bones littering the secret tomb - giant bones much larger than an ordinary humans, with skulls nearly three times the size of the heads of the interloping divers. In the centre of the chamber lay three giants fully intact, arms crossed and chest cavities adorned with cryptic silver amulets in the shape of an outstretched bat. Terrified, the divers pillaged the amulets, leaving the enormous bones behind…

Dr. Vekua holds up giant bones found in Borjormi-Kharagauli National Park in the Georgian Caucasus

The Georgian incident of the early 1900’s marked the beginning of a century of anomalous experiences related to giant humanoids living in the fringes of Eurasia, with hotspots stretching from Lake Baikal in Eastern Siberia, south to Lake Issyk-Kul and as far west as the Georgian Caucasus. The finds of the Georgian boys would eventually be corroborated by work done in the early 2000’s that unearthed a long forgotten burial chamber containing human skeletons far larger than the average. When analyzed, the ratios of the bones pointed to an overall height of 2.5-3 meters! These findings heightened the validity of the claims of individuals who had reported encounters with giant humanoids entities residing in the depths of Eurasian lakes from the Eastern shores of the Black sea to the scattered lakes of St. Petersburg in the north, and in the Far East the notorious Lake Baikal.

SOVIET 'FROGMEN' DIVING INTO THE DEPTHS OF LAKE ISSYK-KUL

The accounts differentiate little in their description of the giant humanoids whose height is reported at 3 meters tall, their silvery colored skins or suits providing their only protection in the frigid depths. Webbed hands and abnormally large eyes are also common features described in witness accounts. As bizarre that the story sounds, the USSR Engineer Forces of the Ministry of Defense recognized the threat in a report issued soon after the tragic events of 1982, where seven Soviet divers encountered the giant swimmers while on a training exercise. The divers pursued the humanoids in a misguided attempt to capture the unknown specimens resulting in a sudden forceful resurfacing that was compounded by a lack of working decompression chambers resulting in three out of seven divers perishing on the shores while the remaining four suffered irreparable brain damage.

UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS SEEN OVER LAKE BAIKAL, SIBERIA

The report, initially received by the Turkmenistan Military from the Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces, was supplemented by an additional bulletin from the USSR Ministry of Defense. The contents of the report “listed numerous deep-water lakes where there had been registered sightings of anomalous phenomena: appearances of underwater creatures analogous to the Baikal type, descent and ascent of gigantic discs and spheres, powerful luminescence emanating from the deep, etc.” (Pravda) Capture of the giant humanoids was prohibited by the government, leading some to suppose that the high command had more information that they were willing to share with the public.

Conspiracies aside, the report points to the obvious: that these are not false claims but rather there is a real unexplained phenomena or species residing in the depths of Eurasian lakes. Whether these are ultra-terrestials, extra-terrestrials becomes a point of interest in this case, given the extensive archeological history of the area and the numerous finds of ancient civilizations long since submerged under the surfaces of the unpredictable Issyk-Kul and Baikal. Issyk-Kul in particular is revealing a plethora of settlements from different ages – up to ten different sites have been discovered by archeologists in the last two decades alone!

These findings lend credence to an ancient pre-Islamic legend of King Ossounes, a Giant with the ears of a donkey who was the last ruler of this fabled kingdom. The story goes that King Ossounes was deeply ashamed of his asinine ears and so had all of his barbers to be killed after witnessing this unusual feature. One barber was alternatively sworn to secrecy but unable to resist, he whispered the secret into a well, which then flooded the kingdom and submerged it at the bottom of the newly formed Issyk-Kul. The legend neatly ties together the formation of the lake and the existence of ancient giants residing in an underwater civilization. Could the descendants of King Ossounes be the amphibious creatures we are witnessing in the 21st century?

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Written by Amber Rae Bouchard